**Chapter 17 – The Morau Estate & The Shadow on the Valley**
**Friday night,December 11– Morau family estate, Breb**
Ana's ancestral home is all dark wood, embroidered linens, and a hearth big enough to park a car in.
We eat until we can't move: sarmale, mămăligă with sour cream and sheep cheese, tuică that makes Remy cough and Seras grin like a demon.
After dinner Ana leads me to the attic.
A single candle.
An old cedar box.
Inside: photographs of Elowene at my age—same white-blonde hair, same crystal blue eyes i had before Julian turned Me, same quiet storm behind the smile.
**Ana (voice soft):**
"She Couldn't wear the crown of Dacia becauseshe was not like Dacia.But She Kept it Sealed.
She,
Wanted you to have it or to keep it sealed to protect the ones you love ."Like She did.
I trace Elowene's face with a trembling finger.
**Celeste (whisper):**
"I'm trying to have both."
**Ana (kissing my forehead):**
"Then keep choosing the people who remind you why you're doing this.
Never the power."
Downstairs, Remy is asleep on the couch with his head in my mom's lap while she strokes his hair like he's another one of her kids.
Seras is curled in an armchair, shadow cloak pulled up to her chin, flames flickering gently at her fingertips in her sleep.
I take the blanket from the back of the couch and cover them all.
This is what I'm fighting for.
**Saturday morning, December 12th – Goodbye**
We leave at dawn.
Ana presses a tiny carved wooden horse into my palm (the Morau family sigil) and makes me promise to come back when the crown is whole.
**Ana (eyes wet):**
"Next time you come as queen.
This time you came as family."
I hug her so hard I lift her off the ground.
The flight home is quiet.
Remy sleeps with his head on my shoulder the whole way across the Atlantic.
**Saturday evening – Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas**
We land at the private airstrip just after 6 p.m. local time.
The valley air smells like home: geothermal steam, pine, and frost.
Calder's truck is waiting.
So is almost the entire pack.
But something's wrong.
Julian steps forward the second we climb down, face grim.
**Julian:**
"We've got a problem.
Something crossed the ward lines while you were gone.
Old blood. Older than the crown."
He hands me a shard of black glass etched with a symbol I've never seen: a broken circle split by seven slashes.
The bloodstone on my forehead flares painfully.
**Crown HUD (voice suddenly sharp):**
```
ALERT – Unknown Bloodline Signature Detected
Threat Level: Crimson
Location: Central Hot Springs National Park, 9 km NE
Signature Match: "The Severed Circle" – Extinct (?)
Status: Active after 400 years silence
```
Remy's hand finds mine instantly.
**Remy (low, deadly):**
"Looks like vacation's over."
**Celeste (gripping the winterglass crescent in my pocket):**
"Good.
I was just getting warmed up." And it's older than the Morau Crown but not older than the Crown of Dacia.
Seras cracks her knuckles; maple fire erupts around her wrists like greeting an old friend.
The pack parts as we walk forward.
Nine pieces down.
Thirty-eight to go.
And now something that was supposed to be dead just woke up in our backyard.
I look at Remy, at Seras, at the valley that raised me.
**Celeste (quiet smile, lightning in my eyes):**
"Let's go remind them why this valley belongs to us."
We head toward the trees as the sun sets blood-red behind the mountains.
the morning after we shatter the first shard**
Julian stayed up all night cross-referencing every blood-rune scrap we have.
What he found makes the coffee turn to ice in my stomach.
**Corrected Timeline & Origin**
- The Crown of Dacia: forged –3300 BCE, Early Bronze Age, by the first blood-mages of the free Dacians.
- The Severed Circle: born 1597 CE, during the height of Michael the Brave's wars.
→ They are **younger** than the Crown by almost five thousand years.
→ But they were seven of the strongest battle-sorcerers alive in their century, hand-picked because their combined raw power already rivaled the half-complete Crown.
**Why they're still a nightmare at 9/47**
When the Circle tried to annihilate the binding ritual in 1612, the Crown didn't just punish them; it **fed** on them.
It ripped their souls out, bound them into the seven black-glass shards, and then used their own stolen power to hide the remaining thirty-eight treasures in pocket-realms.
In other words:
Every time I claim another piece, the Circle gets a fraction of their original strength back, because the Crown is literally built on the energy it siphoned from them.
**Current Threat Assessment (9/47 claimed)**
- Physical form: still impossible while treasures remain unclaimed (their biggest weakness).
- Manifestation: they can now project one "Revenant" at a time, an avatar made of black glass and frozen blood that lasts up to 72 hours.
- Power scaling: each Revenant is roughly 85–90 % as strong as I am **right now** with nine pieces.
→ Fast enough to match my Mirror Step.
→ Strong enough to trade blows with my full Crimson Tempest and walk away.
→ Old enough to know tricks the Crown itself has forgotten.
**Julian's whiteboard, 3 a.m., written in shaking red marker:**
```
SEVERED CIRCLE REVENANT (current stats @ 9/47)
Strength: 90 % of Celeste's peak output
Speed: 95 %
Blood Magic Mastery: 400+ years of muscle memory
Specialty: "Circle's Cut" – can temporarily sever ONE treasure bond for 24 hours
→ If they cut Winterglass, I lose Mirror Step and True Reflection for a full day
Duration: 72 hours before the shard has to recharge
Weakness: Destroy the black-glass core embedded in the Revenant's chest
```
**Seras (reading over my shoulder):**
"So they're basically evil DLC versions of you that get stronger every time you level up."
**Remy (dagger already glowing hellebore-purple):**
"Then we don't let them choose the battlefield.
We hunt the shards when school's out, weekends, holidays.
They want to follow us? Fine.
We make them regret waking up."
I stare at the dust of the first shard still glittering on the table.
**Celeste (quiet, lightning crawling across my knuckles):**
"They think nine pieces makes me weak.
They're about to learn what a storm does when it's only getting started."
**Crown HUD (new permanent alert, blood-red text):**
```
SEVERED CIRCLE – ACTIVE HUNTERS
Status: 6 / 7 shards still intact
Next projected Revenant manifestation: within 7–14 days
They will pursue when you are not on protected pack ground.
The hunt is mutual.
```
I look at Remy, at Seras, at the valley sleeping outside the window.
Thirty-eight pieces left.
Six ancient sorcerers who literally helped write the rules of my power, now trying to kill me with them.
Good.
I always work better when the odds say I should be scared.
Let them come.
School's Monday through Friday.
Every other minute belongs to the storm.
The Monastery of Mages and Wizards, Shambhala**
**December 15, 2026 – 02:47 a.m. Himalayan time**
Deep beneath the hidden peaks, in the great obsidian hall of the First Circle, the silence is older than language.
Then it breaks.
A single pillar of black-glass flame erupts from the floor, carving the forbidden sigil of the Severed Circle into the air in letters of frozen blood.
The crest burns for exactly seven heartbeats before collapsing into ash that refuses to fall.
Every ward in Shambhala screams at once.
The First Wizard (name unpronounceable in any mortal tongue, title simply "One") rises from the lotus throne.
White hair, eyes like dying stars, robes that shift between galaxies.
**One (voice that vibrates in bone, not air):**
"They wake."
The High Council assembles in seconds: twelve elders from every living tradition, faces hidden behind masks of living flame, storm, void, and jade.
The divination is instant and unanimous.
**Elder of the Jade Mask:**
"North America. Arkansas. A blood-heir carries nine of forty-seven.
The Severed Circle has already manifested one Revenant."
**Elder of the Storm Mask:**
"The girl is fithteen.
She should not be fighting them alone."
**One (quiet, terrible):**
"She is not alone.
She simply does not yet know the world is watching."
A decision is made without vote.
They choose the investigator who can walk unseen among teenagers, who still remembers what it is to be young and furious and in love.
**Elder Rowan Vale**
- Appears twenty-five, actually 387
- North-American born (Pacific Northwest, 1638)
- Former prodigy of blood-and-storm craft
- Known for disappearing for decades at a time to "live a human life"
- Currently missing two fingers on his left hand (lost to a Severed Circle blade in 1778)
The council chamber dims.
Rowan steps out of a ripple in the air wearing ripped black jeans, a faded flannel, and a battered leather jacket that smells like pine and old magic.
A silver travel mug of coffee materializes in his hand.
**Rowan (dry, already exhausted):**
"Hot Springs, Arkansas. Of course it's Hot Springs.
Place has been a ley-line powder keg since the 1800s."
**One (placing a hand on his shoulder):**
"Observe only.
Interfere only if the heir or the valley itself is about to fall.
The Severed Circle must not claim the forty-seven."
**Rowan (smirking):**
"Observe. Right.
I was a teenager once. Observation never lasts long."
He salutes with the coffee mug and steps sideways through a mirror that isn't there.
**Destination: Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas**
**Arrival: December 16, 2026 – 07:12 a.m. Central Time**
Somewhere over the Pacific, Rowan Vale watches the sunrise and mutters into his coffee:
**Rowan:**
"Six angry ghosts, one half-crowned storm queen, and high school.
This is gonna be fun."
The Monastery seals its gates behind him.
In Hot Springs, the air pressure drops two millibars without warning.
A new player just entered the board.
And he's bringing three centuries of bad decisions and perfect coffee.
: Rowan Vale – First 24 Hours in Hot Springs**
**December 16th, 2026 – Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas**
**07:12 a.m. – Arrival**
Rowan steps out of a gas-station bathroom mirror on Central Avenue like he's been living here forever.
Coffee still hot.
Jacket still smelling like Himalayan cedar and 387 years of sarcasm.
He feels her before he sees her.
A pressure behind the eyes, the way the air feels seconds before lightning decides to strike the exact spot you're standing on.
The girl is sixteen and already humming at a frequency that makes the ley lines under the valley twitch like live wires.
Rowan whistles low.
**Rowan (to himself):**
"Bronze-Age warhead with a teenage hormone detonator.
Fantastic."
He pulls a small jade tablet from his pocket.
It projects a single line in glowing script only he can read:
**ASSESSMENT PROTOCOL – CELESTE VALENTINA MORAU**
Current power level (9/47): ≈ 0.7 of a seated High Council Elder
Projected power level (47/47): **> First Wizard "One"**
Threat to global stability if corrupted: **Catastrophic**
Threat to global stability if matured properly: **Necessary**
He exhales through his teeth.
**Rowan:**
"So I'm babysitting a walking apocalypse who hasn't realized she could sneeze and level a state.
Totally Cool." Everything will be fine. I hope.
**08:05 a.m. – Lakeside High parking lot (observation post: roof of the gym)**
He watches from the shadows as the pack arrives.
Celeste rolls in on her titanium board, twin tails flicking like white flames, ruby eyes catching the sunrise like fresh blood.
Six feet tall, wearing Remy's hoodie like battle armor.
Remy unfolds from Calder's truck, all new muscle and quiet violence, amber eyes locked on her like she's the only fixed point in his universe.
Seras drops off her bike trailing real maple fire that doesn't burn the asphalt.
Rowan's jade tablet updates in real time:
**Sync ratings**
Celeste ↔ Remy: 124 % and climbing
Celeste ↔ Seras: 119 %
Pack cohesion: off the charts
**Rowan (quiet, almost reverent):**
"They're building a living weapon out of love and loyalty.
That's… new."
**3:17 p.m. – First Revenant sighting (abandoned bathhouse on Bathhouse Row)**
The Severed Circle doesn't waste time.
A Revenant steps out of a cracked mirror in Bathhouse Row's basement: eight feet tall, black-glass skin, seven slashes glowing across its chest.
It raises a hand and every reflective surface in a two-block radius fractures simultaneously.
Rowan feels the Circle's Cut slice across the valley wards like a scalpel made of nightmares.
Celeste is there in under four minutes (Mirror Step, still rough around the edges, but fast).
The fight is brutal and beautiful.
She and Remy fight like they share one nervous system: lightning and coyote claws braided together.
Seras rains controlled hellfire from the ceiling pipes.
The Revenant holds its own for nine full minutes (longer than anything short of a Council strike team could).
When Celeste finally drives her blood-lightning katana through its core, the explosion levels the basement and sends tourists screaming.
Rowan watches from a shattered window, coffee now cold.
**Rowan (quiet):**
"Nine pieces and she already forced a Revenant to burn seventy-two hours of manifestation in nine minutes.
At forty-seven…"
He doesn't finish the sentence.
**11:59 p.m. – Rooftop above Celeste's house**
He's been tailing them all day (unseen, unfelt).
Celeste and Remy are on her roof again, wrapped in one blanket, sharing earbuds, watching the geothermal steam rise like ghosts.
Rowan crouches on the neighboring chimney, jade tablet glowing softly.
**Final entry, Day 1:**
Subject Morau displays:
- Restraint beyond her years (did not escalate to city-level collateral)
- Protective instincts that override power temptation
- Emotional anchors strong enough to survive full coronation (probability 91 % if current bonds hold)
Severed Circle escalation predicted within 72 hours.
Recommendation:
Maintain covert observation.
Intervene only if heir death or corruption becomes imminent.
Begin quiet preparation of containment protocols… just in case.
Personal note:
She laughed at a stupid coyote joke at 11:47 p.m.
If she keeps that laugh when the crown is whole, the world might actually survive her.
Rowan pockets the tablet, takes a long drink of cold coffee, and settles in to watch the storm sleep.
He's not here to stop her.
He's here to make sure the world deserves what she's going to become.
– First Week Back After Romania
– Monday, December 14 – Friday, December 18, 2026**
**Monday morning – Parking lot**
The bloodstone has been humming since Romania, like it's listening to a radio station I can't quite tune.
Dacia's voice drifts through once, soft and private.
**Dacia (telepathic, almost amused):**
*Someone is watching from a place even your fire girl's cloak cannot reach.
Old eyes. Careful eyes.
Let him think the storm is still asleep.*
Then silence.
I shake it off.
Severed Circle paranoia, probably.
Remy steals my coffee the second he climbs out of the truck.
**Remy:**
"You okay, Vale? You look like the crown just whispered your GPA."
**Celeste (snorting):**
"Feels like someone walked over my grave.
It's fine."
I don't mention Dacia's warning.
I barely understand it myself.
**Tuesday – Period 4, History**
New substitute: Mr. Rowan Vale.
Tall, flannel, silver travel mug, two fingers missing on his left hand.
He writes his name on the board and the chalk makes no sound.
When he calls roll, his eyes pause on me for half a heartbeat.
That's it.
Nothing anyone else would notice.
The bloodstone gives one warm pulse, like a cat acknowledging another cat on the roof.
**Mr. Vale (casual, smiling at the whole class):**
"Try to stay awake, people. History bites when you ignore it."
I write his name in the margin of my notebook and underline it three times.
**Thursday – Skatepark after school**
I'm in the middle of a switch bigspin heelflip line when the staring feeling hits again, stronger than ever.
Like the sky itself just leaned in.
I scan the park: Remy grinding the rail, Seras lighting the coping on fire for fun, Noah filming, Brittany yelling angles.
No one new.
No Mr. Vale.
No random creepers.
Yet the pressure doesn't fade until I land the line.
Remy skates up, sweat-damp hair falling in his eyes.
**Remy:**
"You good? You looked like you felt something."
**Celeste (shrugging, uneasy):**
"Ghosts, maybe.
Or too much coffee."
Seras flicks a tiny flame at me.
**Seras:**
"Your ghosts need to pay admission if they're gonna stare."
I laugh it off, but the bloodstone stays warm the rest of the session.
**Friday – Lunch**
I'm halfway through my fries when the feeling slams into me again, so strong my vision tunnels for a second.
I look up.
Nothing.
Just the usual chaos of the cafeteria.
But the bloodstone is practically purring.
**Dacia (soft, almost laughing):**
*He is better than any cloak, little queen.
Even I can only taste the edge of him.
Be patient.
Be ordinary.
Let the watcher watch.*
I force myself to finish my fries, to laugh at Remy stealing Seras's tater tots, to pretend I'm just a sixteen-year-old girl with homework and a boyfriend who growls at seagulls.
Whoever's out there is invisible in a way that makes Seras's shadow cloak look like a Halloween costume.
Fine.
I'll play normal.
For now.
But storms remember every set of eyes that ever dared to measure them.
And I've got a perfect memory.